The new September Winds disc, again for Leo, brings a radical sense of freshness and change. The group’s 2003 release, Alder Brook, might be seen as an extended exploration of the internality of sound, almost as a long-form dissection of a musical instant, and while the proceedings certainly had life and moments of vigor, the overall gestalt was one of meditative exploration and rumination.

On Short Stories, Evan Parker and company have done an about-face, and the results might be best characterized as second Viennese jazz, given the group’s newly flexed dialogic muscles and pointalistic playing. The communication has an edge and power not as evident on earlier work, and the results are continually fascinating, beautiful, and often downright funny.

The change is apparent from the very first moments of the “Anton Au Gare” series, as we are plunged unceremoniously into an event that sounds as if it might have been evolving before the recording started. This aesthetic seems to have been part of the quasi-compositional plan, devised by Peter A. Schmid, who is given credit for leading the group on a series of brief semi-directed improvisations that might involve, for example, a suggested word, phrase, or mode of playing. The latter is exemplified by “No MP”, signifying that all mouthpieces were removed for the recording.

Even more shocking is the change in acoustic space. Alder Brook was recorded in a church, and as with Parker’s solo concerts of the period, long luminous pattern-repetition pieces emerged to stunning effect. Short Stories sports as dry a recording as one could imagine comfortably, “Antonio”’s opening gesture almost seeming like a final cadence given the immediate decay and highlighted dynamic shifts. I was immediately reminded of Boulez’s recent Webern survey, with which this disc is on a par for clarity and precision.

However, this is no mere Dharmstadt knockoff, as the second installment in the “Antonio Au Gare” series will show. It’s a startlingly hilarious blend of Boulez and jungle-era Ellington, the opening chromatic saxophone flourish and succeeding cadenza, dripping with vibrato and 1930s nostalgia, being complimented by growling muted trombone. A poignantly climactic moment of “harmony” drives the point home, and like many of the other tracks, this one simply stops, the space between pieces becoming as important as the music.

The longest piece here is about five minutes, the shortest—also the last—is a 44-second romp through serialized Dixieland again, appropriately entitled “Fresh Ending”. It is just that, but I was left wishing for more. This disc is tons of transcendental fun, impossible to absorb but never unapproachable, and I’m left hoping for a sequel.